Never miss a local story.

This marks the second straight year a tiebreaker will decide the AL Central. Last season, the Twins lost 1-0 at Chicago.

After Detroit beat Chicago 5-3, Minnesota downed Kansas City 13-4 to create this playoff. The Twins won 16 of their last 20, and overcame a three-game deficit by winning their last four.

"Everybody's written us off and rightfully so," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "We looked pretty ugly. But we didn't write ourselves off and that's all that matters."

The teams get an extra day off — not for travel, but because Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings host Green Bay on Monday night. Because of that, the logistics could become complicated.

The New York Yankees, holding home-field advantage throughout the postseason, can choose whether they want to start the playoffs against the Twins-Tigers winner on Wednesday or Thursday. The tricky part: The Yankees get one hour after the tiebreaker to announce their decision.

That means a quick turnaround for the AL Central champ if, as expected, New York picks to play Game 1 at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

Boston will open at the Los Angeles Angels in the other best-of-five AL matchup, either Wednesday or Thursday.

The National League first-rounders begin Wednesday — wild card Colorado at the World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies by day, and Albert Pujols and St. Louis at Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers at night.

Ryan Howard and the East champion Phillies went 4-2 against Troy Tulowitzki and the Rockies. It's a playoff rematch from 2007, when Colorado streaked into the playoffs and swept Philadelphia in the first round.While the Rockies surged into the playoffs, the Dodgers and Cardinals struggled at the end. Los Angeles ended its longest losing streak of the year at five on Saturday night by beating Colorado for the West title.

St. Louis was 5-2 against the Dodgers this season, with Chris Carpenter winning twice.

"I think we've lost an edge here and there, but I don't think we've lost a lot of edges," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "I think we're going to be a very difficult club to play against. But we were in position to win enough games and get home field, and you can't just brush that aside."

The Red Sox-Angels pairing is a familiar one — Boston eliminated the Angels three times in the first round during the previous five years. It happened the last two seasons and overall those matchups haven't been close, with the Red Sox winning nine of 10 games.

The Angels went 5-4 against Boston this season. They met last month at Fenway Park, a series punctuated by Los Angeles manager Mike Scioscia and his team getting agitated over a couple of ball-strike calls.

"I think we're much deeper right now than we have been entering any other playoff situation than we have been since '02," Scioscia said.